


Stitch Up My Emptiness

by dancinbutterfly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Anger, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depressed Stiles, Dismemberment, Disturbing Themes, Dreams, Established Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Future Fic, Ghosts, Gore, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, Love, M/M, Near Future, Platonic Cuddling, Romance, Sad, Sex, Temporary Character Death, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:59:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles sees Derek killed, cut into literal pieces, everyone is afraid he'll lose it including Stiles himself. At least until Stiles comes up with a plan. Then Stiles is sure that if he can just to stitch his lover back together everything will fix itself. No one else stops being afraid but that's okay. Stiles knows this is going to work.</p><p>Inspired by <a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/d43adcf4e2ccdedd31d5bb576ab2b74c/tumblr_msv4v2JjuK1svtat4o1_500.jpg">this amazing art work.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i fall to pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Derek is dead for the majority of this fic but as the tags indicate it is a TEMPORARY character death. Temporary. Just trust me. I'll get you through this. Heed the trigger warnings in the tags.
> 
> I have a posting schedule for this as it is plotted out in chapters and I'm just hammering out some kinks. Therefore this will be updated regularly every week to 10 days or so.
> 
> Story title is from the song Stitches by Orgy  
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles stands an ocean of tries not to lose his mind, even though Derek is scattered around him in fifteen different sections. Considering that fact, Stiles thinks he manages fairly well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from I Fall to Pieces by Patsy Cline/thanks to eledhwelin for the beta/as ever thanks to stupidjerkward for the inspiration with the beautiful artwork which you should [click here](http://25.media.tumblr.com/d43adcf4e2ccdedd31d5bb576ab2b74c/tumblr_msv4v2JjuK1svtat4o1_500.jpg) to see if you havent yet.

Derek’s body lies scattered on the cold linoleum floor of the high school cafeteria in large chunks. Stiles’s body while, whole and healthy, stands stock still and rigid while his mind runs at breakneck speed.

Blood, he thinks as drops drip off his chin and onto his wet shirt where it’s already sticking to his body. There’s a lot of blood. It’s going to stain if it isn’t socked in like a fuck-ton of hydrogen peroxide on these like, now. No. Stupid. Clothes are stupid. Shock, this is shock. That’s what this is. It’s shock.

He feels himself begin to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet. Involuntary loss of muscle control, he thinks as his grip loosens. The axe he’s been clinging to for the last fifteen minutes slips from his fingers and the head hits the floor with clatter, though it’s long enough to stay in his hand. He’d gotten it out of the Break In Case of Emergency fire case thing in the hallway. He’d always wanted to break it but the family of wendigos were the first appropriate emergency he’d ever broken the glass for.

As far as lore went, wendigos were supposed cannibal men turned into monsters that were supposed to be, like Big Foot, empowered by the human flesh they always hungered and totally and completely inhuman. Only they weren’t. They were people, so much more only…more. Tall like pro-basketball players, broader than Super Bowl linebackers, they were faster and stronger than werewolves but they had to use human weapons.

This one had used used knives like machetes only larger and sharpened so fine they’d sliced through bone like butter left sitting on the kitchen counter. He’d had to bend over to cut Derek into pieces. Bite size, he’d said and then he’d laughed. Apparently butchering a werewolf was distracting enough that it allowed Stiles to get a swing at its neck with the fire axe. 

Adrenaline and years of sports and fighting evil shit like this made him strong and the blow managed to get through the spine. The arterial spray drenched him like a burst pipe because he only got the wendigo’s head half off its neck but the thing had been human once and they died the same way humans did. It was already dead before Stiles got the axe out for the second blow, and the third, and the fourth that finally severed its head completely.

Now he stood here, staring and the chunks of Derek Hale in an ocean of mixed werewolf and wendigo blood feeling nothing but wet. He shivers as the blood goes cold on his skin and then he can’t stop, it goes from a single tremor to full on shaking, so violently that the rocking stops and his whole body is vibrating. He’s gasping for breath, sobbing for air and staring at the the three pieces of what was Derek’s face. The knives were so sharp that they went clean through bone, his brain smoothly divided in two pieces in a diagonal like O-ren Ishii through his right cheek leaving his eyes and mouth untouched, both open in shock. The second slice on what would’ve been the larger portion started at the bridge of his nose and cut under his left eye down to his jaw at a curve under that took a large portion of chin with it. He can’t count the pieces the rest of his body is in ten, fifteen maybe? He tries to count but loses track every time, greying out before zoning back into the horror in stereo surround sound, high-def LCD, and smell-o-vision. 

The rest of the pack had been taking on the other two wendigos so it’s a forever before Aiden finds him like that. Stiles knows it’s Aiden because Ethan wouldn’t backhand him across the face to get him back to himself. That’s just not Ethan’s style. It works though and Stiles blinks back into consciousness to stare into his glowing red eyes. “Oh. Hey, Aiden.”

“Stilinski, what the fuck is this?”

Stiles tightens his grip on the axe and lifts it to point at the chaos on the floor. “That’s the wendigo,” he says waving the axe to the right. Aiden turns his head to look. “And that’s Derek,” he says pointing left. 

“Jesus Christ,” Aiden murmurs horrified. He turns back to look at Stiles because apparently staring at a blood-drenched human is better than looking at a humanoid butcher shop. He’s pale under the too-bright overhead lights, a little green even. Funny, Stiles didn’t think werewolves could get nauseous but Aiden looks ready to hurl.

“Don’t puke on me. I’m already gross,” Stiles says, smiling. It’s a manic smile. He isn’t all there, isn’t functioning properly because there is nothing to smile about here, nothing to smile about ever again after what’s just happened. Not with Derek hacked up and scattered on a dirty floor. His boyfriend, partner really at this point, them both in their twenties and with their futures sprawled ahead of them, was turned into stew meat right of front of him while Stiles watched powerless to save him. It’s so discordant, so completely out of sync from where they were two hours ago - in their apartment having noisy, messy sex on the couch because ha, they could do that in now that Isaac’s _finally_ got his own place - that hysterical laugh slips out to join the Why So Serious grin.

“Hey,” Aiden says, planting both hands on Stiles’s shoulders, possibly the first non-violent contact he’s ever made outside of a fight for their lives. “Don’t lose it on me, Stilinski.”

“I’m not,” Stiles says on a broken chuckle. “I’m not, I’m just - oh my god, we’re going to have a bitch of a time with transport, right?” He’s shaking again because Derek’s skin is going to be cold instead of hot and welcoming but he charges through. Keep calm and carry on is what all the posters say, right? “I think they have garbage bags in the kitchen. Can you go tear the door off and get me some so I can get Derek out of here?”

Aiden scans his face, then nods. “Yeah, I’ve got to go get something first. Stay here, okay, but maybe turn around.”

“No,” Stiles practically growls. “No. It’s Derek,” he says like just saying his name can make Aiden understand how much that means, truly means. 

Derek’s name carries the weight of days spent chirping each other and nights making whispered plans to build a whole new house on the land where the old Hale House used to be — one they could fill with this new family and maybe kids one day. Derek was making loved and more importantly being loved from the depths that fathomless, churning well of emotion that drove so many of the things Derek did, only focused on Stiles, giving each other a port in the storm of their lives. How can Aiden even ask him to turn away when it’s _Derek_? 

“I can’t leave him alone with that-that— monster.”

“Okay.” Aiden nods slowly. “How about this then?” He walks across to the wendigo’s head and body, his shoes making wet slapping sounds as he goes. One right after the other, Aiden hurls both of them out the windows of the cafeteria so hard that the entire wall shakes and glass on adjacent windows shatter with the force, making a lovely tinkling sound. Then he turns back to Stiles. “Better?”

Yeah, actually it is. Stiles nods. “Thanks.”

“Now just turn around until I get back. I’ve never asked you for anything, Stilinski. I’ll owe you one.” 

That’s a big get, Stiles recognizes with the coolly objective part of his mind that is still running in the background like those annoying Windows programs. He sighs, then turns abruptly, making the soles of his shoes squeak. God, not being able to see it, remembering it, is actually worse but he’s already here. “You owe me one,” he grits out. “Go do what you have to do and come back. He has to get to Deaton.”

“Riiiiiiight.” Aiden draws out the vowel into about seven syllables. It’s impressive. Then he pats Stiles on the shoulder and vanishes. 

Stiles shuts his eyes because somehow, only able to see the edge of the blood where it’s spreading past his Converse and edging toward the folded up tables and none of the body parts. Without the physical evidence in front of his face, Stiles can imagine that it’s all from the monster. Worse, he can Derek behind him, wrapping his arms around his chest from behind and tucking his chin over his shoulder.

“You’ll pull it together,” he hears Derek murmur. His mouth is warm against Stiles neck, brushing along the skin beneath his ear. It makes him shudder as it makes some of the blood there dry cold. 

“No, I won’t.” Stiles gasps because he can’t breathe. He maybe is having the beginnings of a panic attack. He isn’t sure. Nothing is certain anymore except that there are a pile of body parts behind him. His words echo back to him in the emptiness. “I’m going to shatter, Derek. How’m I supposed to keep going after seeing that thing cut you up? I’m going to lose it.”

The kiss he feels to pressed to his temple is too real to be phantom. Solid, strong, yet soft just like Derek turned out to be, beneath his calcified exterior, the lips against his skin are a visceral sensation. “So lose it for a little while,” Derek says, giving him a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay if you lose it because you always put the pieces back together. You will this time too. I can wait.”

Another kiss is planted on his temple, then further back to the edge of his hairline as Aiden returns. Not even when he and Kali killed Boyd did Stiles hate him more than he does in that first instant, as his presence seems to replace Derek’s and banishes what little Stiles was holding onto of the man he loves so fucking much. Loves, present tense because the fact that Derek is dead doesn’t change the way Stiles feels. It’s gone a second later as he blinks at the rest of his pack his pack. 

Ethan and Isaac look worse for the wear and Allison is leaned against Jackson for support, one leg off the ground. Cora is clinging to Lydia, her face buried in her neck, eyes squeezed shut. Even from here he can see how pale Lydia is and Stiles wonders idly if she could feel this coming, if she knew Derek was going to die or if she is shocked too.

He doesn’t see Scott with the group because he is already moving to Stiles, gathering him in his powerful arms and holding him up as if he could sense the way Stiles legs are ready to give out. Scott braces around Stiles’s back with one arm and gently wipes blood from his face with the heel of his other hand like that’s going to do any good. Stiles snorts at the fruitlessness of the gesture only realizing his laughter’s degenerated into tears when Scott wipes at his face with his cheeks with his fingertips. 

“You didn’t see it,” Stiles says. Scott leans forward and presses his forehead against Stiles’s. It hurts. Derek used to do that when they curled up together in bed, drowsy but not ready to sleep.

“Do you want me to?” Scott asks. “Would me seeing help?” He puts his hand on the back of Stiles’s neck. “I can.”

“Later,” Stiles says because he can’t carry this alone. He can’t. He’s going to relive it anyway and he is not a good enough man to refuse the offer Scott has made. “Help me get him out of here. Scott, help me,” he sobs. Huh. How did his fists ends up clenched in Scott’s shirt? He does not remember doing that. “Scott, I have to get him out, get him cleaned up. Help me. Fuck help me.”

“I will,” Scott promises. “I will. We all will.”


	2. i’ll be your warrior of care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isaac stands guard because he's powerless to do anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from Guardian by Alanis Morissette/thanks to eledhwenlin for the beta/as ever thanks to stupidjerkward for the inspiration with the beautiful artwork which you should [click here](http://25.media.tumblr.com/d43adcf4e2ccdedd31d5bb576ab2b74c/tumblr_msv4v2JjuK1svtat4o1_500.jpg) to see if you havent yet.

This is the most fucked up thing Isaac has ever seen in his entire life. More fucked up than the nights he spent locked inside of the freezer, Boyd dead in the water, Jennifer’s real face, or even when the kitsune turned from a hot girl into a freaking _mountain_. Nope, watching Stiles and Scott and Deaton carefully bathe the neatly carved chunks of what was Derek Hale takes the fucking cake. 

Stiles is wrecked. He’s been crying steadily since they found him and hasn’t stopped. He’s leaking a quiet stream of tears that didn’t stop, like someone turned on a tap behind his eyes and let it run. 

Isaac can’t look at him for longer than a second. He’s the only person who knew that Derek had gone ring shopping last week. Isaac had gone with him, watched Derek rub his neck and ask stuttered, nervous questions and turn bright red. He’d been alive and in love and ready to ask Stiles to marry him days ago, even if that was a secret only Isaac knew. Now Stiles is crying a proverbial river and Derek is scattered across Deaton’s exam table like a puzzle pulled from one of the Hostel movies.

He’d tried to help, with the cleaning and care of Derek’s body but Stiles had screamed at him, “Don’t fucking touch him!” He clawed at Isaac, arm flailing in attack; so now he stands across the room watching the three men work and ostensibly guarding the door.

The care and almost ritualistic tenderness that the three of them handle Derek’s remains with is just so painfully intimate. Isaac feels voyeuristic, invasive, all of his human social instincts demand that he go away because this is not his affair nor his place. His wolf instincts, on the other hand, won’t let him go because Derek may have regressed back to beta but the man will always, _always_ be his Alpha. He pulled Isaac out of a grave, literally, and gave him a new life in every sense of the word. 

Derek was far from perfect. He didn’t have half the leadership skills Scott had naturally and made mistakes with Isaac that he still hasn't forgiven. Yet where he had no one, Isaac now has a dozen people who love him, who care if he lives or dies every day. Derek was in that thrown-together family before tonight. Broken as it is now, Isaac knows for a fact that it still exists and that he is a part of it only because Derek found him - weak and in need - and offered him a way out through the bite.

So he can’t leave his alpha. Isaac owes him too much. The least he can do is stand guard while these three take care of the body. It’s a small thing but it’s _something_.

“Isaac,” Deaton says after literally hours of meticulous work. “Help us cover him, please?” He jerks his chin at a roll of plastic in the corner that Deaton probably never needed before Scott was bitten. Isaac brings it to them and they each take a corner, covering Derek’s remains like they’re putting fresh sheets on a bed. Isaac has to admit it’s a relief. 

When that task is done, Deaton rests a hand on Stiles’s shoulder. “Stiles, he needs to be preserved for now. You know that?” Deaton asks. His voice is so gentle, the tone he uses with frightened, wounded animals. Stiles nods. “You know what that means?” Another nod. “Do you want to help me get him there or do you want to stay here?” 

“I can’t leave him,” Stiles whispers. “I- I can’t let him just-“ His voice breaks in a sob, the first since they left the high school. Deaton releases him and Scott drapes himself over Stiles’s shoulders, hugging him from from behind and Stiles covers his face with his hands. They all stand still, waiting as he heaves out his grief for a solid five minutes before regaining control and wipes his face. “I’ll help.”

“Okay. You and I then. Scott, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Scott untangles himself from Stiles’s body, moving to Isaac’s side. Together they watch Stiles and Deaton wheel Derek out of the room to the cold storage where Deaton keeps the remains of animals who die in surgery or overnight and have to be kept until their owners can arrive and decide what they want to do. 

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Scott admits when they’re gone. He doesn’t bother to lower his voice. Stiles can’t hear like they can. “I mean, Derek always seemed invincible, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Scott is crying now, for the first time. Isaac can smell his tears. He doesn’t look. “Stiles may not make it back from this. I mean, if it were Allison…” He sniffs and clears his throat. “I don’t know what I can do for him.”

“I think you’re doing it, man.” 

Isaac has never seen love like Scott’s love for Stiles. It’s so different from the love that brought Jackson back to Beacon Hills for Lydia, that brought Ethan out of the Alpha Pack for Danny, that Scott and Allison never managed to get over, that Derek had practically vibrated with as he shopped for an engagement ring and which is destroying Stiles now. Scott and Stiles are profound and platonic in the sense that Isaac learned in college but never thought he’d see, not really. They break his heart in a whole new way.

“We can’t lose him too.” 

The words hang heavy between them. Scott’s fear smells acrid and foul in the air.

“We won’t,” Isaac assures him, finally looking at him. “He’s still got his dad. He loves you two too much to be stupid.”

Scott looks back, the fear making his dark eyes bottomless. “That’s not what I meant.” His words make Isaac’s breath catches and maybe he’s afraid, too.


	3. my damsel breaths fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison isn't mad. She's furious. Grief does that to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This contains graphic depictions of a butchered corpse and extreme grieving. 
> 
> chapter title from My Damsel:A Confession To An Adversary by Evans Blue/As ever thanks to Inspired by stupidjerkward on tumblr who inspired this story with[this amazing art work.](http://i61.tinypic.com/2qxxrv5.jpg)

Allison wants to raze buildings to the ground. Then she wants to set the rubble on fire just to watch it burn to give her a physical reflection of how she feels right now. She wants to scream and scream and scream until her throat is bleeding and her spit is tinged pink.

Mostly she wants to grab Stiles and drag him out of here. This is unnatural. She knows grief. She’s lost before, sat with a corpse. She remembers touching her mother’s dead skin, holding her lip hand. 

That was nothing like what Stiles is doing. He is skating his fingertips over Derek’s different pieces skin: his nose, a shoulder, a knee, a knuckle, a pectoral muscle, his lower lip, his navel. There’s a pattern to it, starting farthest from him and working inwards. When Stiles reaches the end he starts again from the other side. 

When his father had tried to coax him away earlier, Stiles had actually hit him. He’d smacked the Sheriff’s hands away hard enough that the blow had made a sound that reverberated through the walk-in refrigerator. Then he’d shaken himself and gasped out an apology, grabbing at his father’s arm, pulling him into a desperate hug. Allison had watched, tucked under Scott’s arm, as he held his son against his body and murmured nonsense into his hair. He’d shrugged off his uniform jacket and draped it around Stiles’s shoulders before making his way out. 

“You two are going to watch him?” He’d asked.

“Of course,” Scott said. The Sheriff had given them both a hug at the same time.

“I’m going to go see what I can find out about arrangements and, uh, cultural rituals from those twins and the Hales,” he’d told them when he pulled back. He looked over at Stiles. “He doesn’t need to be thinking about that sort of thing now.”

So now they are watching him in shifts, except for Scott. Scott hasn’t left Stiles alone yet. He even slept over at Stiles’s. Watching Stiles deteriorate is killing Scott but he’s unwavering in his support. Allison has never loved him more.

“I’m going to get you something to eat,” she says. “Do you think he’ll eat?”

“He’s going to have to,” Scott growls. 

Okay, Allison does not want to see how that’s going to go down. Some things should be private. She firmly believes this. She gives him a gentle kiss, lingering until his lips warm, then slips out of the unit.

The air outside is warm and after about two minutes she shrugs out of her jacket. She feels like she’s rising from the dead. This transition is gentler than bursting out of those tubs of ice water from seven years ago after being a corpse herself for more than half a day but the core sensation is identical. She shudders and makes her way out to the lobby. 

Cora is waiting, staring at some fixed point in the middle distance. The kind of stillness in her body is wholly inhuman, the kind an animal gets when it’s been spooked by a large predator but that’s wrong. Wolves don’t have any natural predators.

“I’m getting the guys lunch,” Allison says, “Do you want to come? It’s on me.”

Cora turns slowly then nods. She doesn’t have Derek’s eyes which Allison can’t decide is better or worse. “Yeah. Yeah lets get out of here. This place fucking reeks of death.”

They drive in silence, not even the radio on until Cora heaves a sigh and slumps in the bucket seat. She plants her feet on the dashboard. Normally Allison would protest - its leather okay, and this is the first car she bought with her own money. A nice long rant about respecting other people’s property would finally give her an outlet for her fury at least. Only somehow even Cora’s toenails manage to look said in her black flip-flops. “Are you okay?” She asks instead of demanding she put her feet down.

“No,” Cora snaps. “My big brother’s dead. Again.” She punches her knee. “Fuck. Fuck! I wasn’t supposed to have to do this again. I was supposed to be done.” She inhales deeply and lets out an exhale that sounds like the whimper of a kicked puppy. “I wasn’t supposed to have to mourn him again, Allison. We were together again, even when I wasn’t here, he was alive and I was alive and Uncle Peter - even when things were messed up at least we were all alive. I spent so long thinking I was the last one left and I- This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t you used to hate him?”

“Used to, for a little while,” Allison agreed, feeling her anger leach away. Exhaustion is replacing the waves of rage and that is no better. At least roiling emotion was keeping her upright. Now she’s deflated. “He bit my mom but, uh, I loved your brother a lot longer than I ever hated him.” He was basically her brother-in-law for all intents and purposes. True none of them were married but she and Scott weren’t breaking up again, not this time, and Derek and Stiles had been for keeps from the very beginning. 

So, yeah, Derek had become her family, somewhere along the line. She loved him, in a strange, little sister sort of way that might have been a pale echo of how Cora loved him. She’s loved him enough that she lost count of how many times she’s put her life in danger protecting him before this last, fatal fight. 

That’s not blood but it’s almost as fierce. She tightens her grip on the steering wheel. “A lot longer.”

“Good.” There’s a pause then Cora knocks her knuckle gently on the window. “Jack-in-the-Box over there. We can get them curly fries and shakes.”

“Perfect.”

Once they’re laden down with enough burgers, fries, and milkshakes(plus an orange soda for Deaton) to feed a small army, Cora blurts, “Laura’s buried in our backyard.”

Allison almost snorts vanilla milkshake out her nose. “Behind the Hale House?”

“Yeah. Derek took me there, when I first came back to town back in high school. He wanted me to be able to visit her whenever I wanted since she’s the only one in our family who had a body left to bury. Was. She was the only one.”

Right. Her aunt Kate made sure everyone else was just ashes. Allison can feel her appetite fading.

“Derek would want to be buried with her, wouldn’t he? I mean, since its not like he and Stiles are going to grow old together and get matching plots or whatever. So, he’d want to be with Laura and the rest of the family. That’s what I’d want.”

“Makes sense. I’d want to be with my mom if it were me.”

“Right. Yeah.” Cora sighs and Allison glances over to see her rubbing her neck before fixing her eyes firmly on the road. “I talked to Mr. Stilinski about it and he thinks so too but I can’t- Stiles, he doesn’t answer me. He won’t even look at me.”

“He’s having a hard time.”

“And I’m not?” Cora demands, shouting. She is so very loud in the tiny space of the car. “He was my brother. I’m sorry Stiles lost his boyfriend but he was my brother for twenty years before he and Stiles started fucking. Why doesn’t that count?”

Allison pulls the car over and throws it into park. This is not a conversation that she can have while she’s driving. She takes off her seatbelt and shifts to face Cora. She’s surprised to find that she’s not crying. She’s seething with rage. She and Derek have the same exact muscle twitch in their jaw then they're trying not to lose their cool. Had. Damnit. 

“Cora, of course it counts.”

“None of you are acting like it” She chokes. “Poor fucking Stiles and his poor fucking shocked little brain. What about me? He was my brother! I already lost him once and now- Fuck. Fuck.” She kicks the dashboard bending the frame inward with the force. “Shit.”

Allison winces at the damage. When she looks up Cora is looking at her with huge, worried eyes. “It’s okay.”

She shakes her head, her teeth digging into her lips so hard that for a brief moment, there is actual blood. “I’m sorry. I’ll pay for it.”

“Okay.”

“I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

“Really, it’s okay. It’s a car. We’ll take it to a body shop, they’ll hammer it out, its not life or death or anything,” Allison says going for light. Then she hears what she just said and feels like a totally asshole. 

Cora’s eyes are shining now, although Allison suspects she won’t let those tears fall.“I want a say,” she repeats, sounding all of ten years old. “I just want a say. No one will listen to me. He’s my family.”

“I know. You have a say. You do.” Allison wants to hug her. She’s not stupid so she resists the impulse. “The thing is, he was Stiles’s family too.”

“Not as much.”

“Yeah, Cora, I think he was. You might just have to shift what you call him in your head if that makes it easier, like, think about it like they were life partners, married you know? They used to talk with me and Scott about our kids all playing together so, it’s not just boyfriends like carrying each other’s books and making out between classes.”

Cora hugs herself and stares out the window into the woods. “I get that,” she agrees, squeezing herself tighter, “I do but you guys are letting Stiles be crazy and no one will listen to me. Derek needs to be buried,” she repeats. “He’s been dead for three days. I don’t care if God is talking to him or if they had some kind of mystical soulbond or what, Allison; this is wrong. Stiles can’t keep him in that freaking fridge anymore. It’s not right. Derek deserves better.” She looks down at the dent in the dashboard. “Every wolf deserves better.” 

Allison realizes suddenly that she’s thinking of bodies sliced in half by hunters and left to rot on the ground as a warning. She can see the parallel Cora is drawing here, a lifetime nightmare that goes beyond the cause of death. She reaches brushes an imaginary piece of lint off of Cora’s shoulder as an excuse to give her a reassuring touch. 

Allison plants her hands on the steering wheel as if the gesture will strengthen her resolve.“We’ll talk to him about it.”

“Good because somebody needs to. I can’t take this.”

Allison echoes that sentiment one-hundred per cent. This isn’t her loss, though, as much as she cared for Derek it doesn’t belong to her the way it does to Cora’s or Stiles’s. So she keeps her lips pressed together and puts the car back in drive. She sips at her milkshake, neither of them speaking again as they drive the long way back to the clinic.

 

~*~*~


End file.
